The invention disclosed herein relates to exploration for oil and gas and, in particular, to techniques for stimulating production from sub-surface materials that contain reservoirs of hydrocarbon materials.
Hydraulic stimulation is used to improve productivity of hydrocarbon formations, such as low permeability reservoirs including shale gas reservoirs. At present there are no proven methods other than trial and error for optimizing the design of formation treatments with respect to, for example, well spacing, completion selection, fluid type, pumping schedule, proppant type, etc.